# Will the seventh political system see realignment along gender, education and generation lines? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 29, 2019, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-seventh-political-system-see-realignment-along-gender-education-and-generation-lines/845554 "2019-12-29T17:13:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-seventh-political-system-see-realignment-along-gender-education-and-generation-lines/845554/1 "2019-12-29T17:13:08Z")
We are supposedly currently in the 6th party system. > **[Sixth Party System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Party_System)** > > The Sixth Party System is the era in United States politics following the Fifth Party System. As with any periodization, opinions differ on when the Sixth Party System may have begun, with suggested dates ranging from the late 1960s to the Republican Revolution of 1994. Nonetheless, there is agreement among scholars that the Sixth Party System features strong division between the Democratic and Republican parties, which are rooted in socioeconomic class, cultural, religious, educational and racia... > [@](#): > > The Sixth Party System is characterized by an electoral shift from the electoral coalitions of the Fifth Party System during the New Deal: the Republican Party became the dominant party in the South, rural areas, and suburbs; while the Democratic Party increasingly started to assemble a coalition of African-Americans, Latinos and white urban progressives. A critical factor was the major transformation of the political system in the Reagan Era of the 1980s and beyond.[2][3] The fifth party system was the new deal coaltion started under FDR. A big transition was southern whites and rural whites abandoning the democratic party and becoming republicans due to democrats support for civil rights. Arguably another major transition of the 6th party system was the northeast and west coast becoming reliably blue (these used to be red states). We went from the northeast and west coast being slightly red states and the south being deep blue states in the 5th party system to the opposite happening in the 6th party system. But I’m wondering if the transition of the 7th party system won’t involve geographic regions changing (like the south becoming republican while the northeast and west coast become democrat like happened in the 6th party system). Will the 7th party system just see massive gaps (especially among whites) regarding age, gender and education? The gender gap is growing, and the 2020 election will likely have the biggest gender gap of any election. [https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/27/politics/gender-gap-2020-election/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/27/politics/gender-gap-2020-election/index.html) > [@](#): > > Biden has held a 60% to 36% lead over Trump among women in an average of our last two (October and December) CNN/SSRS polls. The same polling put Trump up 52% to 42% among men voters. When you combine Biden’s 24-point lead among women and Trump’s 10 point lead among men, this makes for a 34-point gender gap. > > Gender gaps have been getting larger in recent years. From 1952 to about 1980, there really wasn’t a gender gap in presidential elections. So this isn’t just about Trump. > > Still, this 34-point gender gap would be a significant increase from what we saw in 2016. In that election, the gender gap was 25 points. This, itself, was a record gender gap for any presidential election dating back to 1952. In fact, no presidential election had previously featured a gender gap of even greater than 20 points. Then there is the education gap, which is primarily a white phenomena and largely a proxy for authoritarianism and bigotry (college educated whites are less authoritarian and less supportive of bigotry, and less likely to support the modern GOP because of it. > **[America Is Divided by Education](https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/11/education-gap-explains-american-politics/575113/)** > > The gulf between the party identification of white voters with college degrees and those without is growing rapidly. Trump is widening it. > [@](#): > > According to exit polls, 61 percent of non-college-educated white voters cast their ballots for Republicans while just 45 percent of college-educated white voters did so. Meanwhile 53 percent of college-educated white voters cast their votes for Democrats compared with 37 percent of those without a degree. > > The diploma divide, as it’s often called, is not occurring across the electorate; it is primarily a phenomenon among white voters. It’s an unprecedented divide, and is in fact a complete departure from the diploma divide of the past. Non-college-educated white voters used to solidly belong to Democrats, and college-educated white voters to Republicans. Several events over the past six decades have caused these allegiances to switch, the most recent being the candidacy, election, and presidency of Donald Trump But there is also a generation gap. Not just among whites, but among non-whites too. Young black voters are more likely to support progressives like Bernie sanders while older black voters support biden. > **[Huge split between older and younger blacks in the Democratic Primary](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/huge-split-between-older-younger-blacks-democratic-primary-n580996)** > > One of Sanders’ challenges is that younger blacks are not voting in large numbers. > [@](#): > > But an analysis of 25 states that held primaries and where exit polls were conducted by NBC News showed that one of Sanders’ challenges is that younger blacks are not voting in large numbers. Sanders, according to the exit polls in these states, received 52 percent of the votes of African-Americans under 30, compared to 47 percent for Clinton. > > However, blacks under 30 were only 3 percent of the Democratic electorate in these states. In contrast, blacks over 60 were 7 percent of the electorate in these states. Clinton won 89 percent of their votes, Sanders 9 percent. ((The Washington Post completed a similar analysis last week and also found low turnout among young black voters.) > **[In Iowa, only 5 percent of Biden supporters are younger than 45](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/1/20943879/iowa-poll-biden-warren-sanders-older-voter-2020)** > > A new poll shows Biden in fourth behind Warren, Sanders and Buttigieg — with a much older base of support. > [@](#): > > Most striking in the survey, which polled 439 likely Democratic caucus-goers in the last week of October, was that Biden pulled only 2 percent of his support from 18- to 29-year-olds, and only 3 percent from 30- to 44-year-olds. His support came almost exclusively from voters older than 45. (The Iowa poll has a small sample size, though the poll was weighted for age, race, region, turnout, gender, and education.) > > This age divide in the Democratic field isn’t only in Iowa, and it isn’t a new phenomenon. It’s reflective of a larger ideological fight that transcends race as a dividing line in the Democratic Party. Younger voters — both white and nonwhite — who are typically more progressive are backing candidates like Warren and Sanders, while older Americans are sticking with Biden So I’m guessing this means that the suburbs become more purple due to college educated whites (especially college educated women) leaving the GOP and becoming democrats. Maybe some red states turn blue due to large urban areas growing. Meanwhile the midwest continues to get more red, and the GOP becomes more and more of a rural party. But how will the generation gap play out? is there a risk that older democrats (white and non-white) will become non-voters or republicans as their children and grandchildren abandon centrist democrats and become democratic socialists? Will the older democrats abandon the party when the younger democrats start electing more and more politicians like AOC, Sanders, Warren, etc? The 7th realignment (assuming that is what this is) seems similiar to the 6th in the sense that it is mostly just about racism. The 6th realignment happened because the democrats supported civil rights, so more racist voters left the democrats and became republicans (mostly whites in the south and rural whites). What is happening now seems similiar, the GOP doubling down on bigotry (nativism, islamophobia, anti-black racism, misogyny, etc) is driving away women and college educated whites. But the generation gap seems independent of racism and is more about economics. Democrats of all races are more likely to be democratic socialists when young and centrist democrats when old. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2019, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-seventh-political-system-see-realignment-along-gender-education-and-generation-lines/845554/2 "2019-12-29T17:18:45Z")
[Moderating] I assume this was meant for Great Debates, not General Questions. Moving. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-seventh-political-system-see-realignment-along-gender-education-and-generation-lines/845554/3 "2019-12-30T14:25:40Z")
With every election we will see realignment based primarily on who is running. It’s a mistake to infer trends without a deeper consideration of who managed to become the candidate, particularly in Presidential elections. There the denominator is too low. I am not a political strategist but I am skeptical that promotion of the idea that GOP loyalists are bigots on average will be a successful strategy by which Democrats secure a broader base. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-the-seventh-political-system-see-realignment-along-gender-education-and-generation-lines/845554/4 "2019-12-30T21:13:30Z")
Trends are difficult to appreciate when large numbers of voters, mostly on one side of a partisan divide, are disenfranchised or suppressed. So what if (x) support (Z)? If they can’t vote, they matter not. And if the vote-count isn’t transparent, why expect fairness? Modern propaganda is aimed to engender distrust of EVERYTHING. Any next-gen political system must account for those unable or unwilling to participate. Is such coming?